JULIO CORTÁZAR HOPSCOTCH

IDEA: New interpretation of classic literature in the context of today’s media.

EXECUTION: The unique form of the Cortázar’s work was the starting point for its development. The book can be read in many ways. One can freely choose the chapters to read, with no regard to the linear order of the novel. Within the text itself, the author has prepared many formal traps that require, the reader to jump from one verse to another. The dialogue with this Hopscotch led us, in the course of many considerations, to the experimental interpretation of the novel in the context of contemporary media, computer games, television and digital imagery based on structures (pixels, rgb). The main issue of Hopscotch was in the form of a traditional book measuring about 8″x 8″ x 1.5″ and was published with various cover types and colours. A special indicating array was designed in order to allow the readers to be able to navigate easily through the chapters. The array’s colour code was used consistently by pagination. This results in a tiny, colourful pattern visible on the book’s spine after it is stapled. The typesetting was intentionally spread across the full width of the square fields so that it referred directly to the look of TV noise and unmasks any of Cortázar’s formal traps. The second issue of Hopscotch constituted 155 books in cuboidal shapes measuring 2.4″x 2.4″ x 2.4″. Each book-chapter was supplemented to a cube shape with cut, coloured magazines; and by this referring not only to the novel’s narrative techniques, but also to the perception of literature as a mirror of reality. Thus, the entire set could be arranged, grouped and adjusted in many various ways. By arranging books according to the indicated array, one could create a continuous, panoramic, pixel pattern extending between following chapter numbers.

The project was honoured in the international publication IMPRINT 2- Innovative Book and Promo Design.